Report: US data centers could consume more natural gas than Germany and Japan combined by 2035
2026-09-15
TechCrunch reports a projection that AI-driven data center growth could push U.S. data centers to become one of the largest natural-gas consumers in the world, exceeding the combined consumption of Germany and Japan by 2035.
Significance 3: A meaningful long-range infrastructure/energy projection with implications for AI buildout costs and policy, though it is a forecast to 2035 rather than a near-term measured outcome.
Implications · machine-drafted, not owner judgment
This reframes AI infrastructure buildout as a first-order energy-policy and utility-planning problem rather than purely a compute-supply one, raising the odds of local political friction (as in the Philadelphia case the same week), utility rate fights, and pressure on labs and cloud vendors to secure or co-invest in power generation directly. Energy availability and cost become a scaling constraint independent of chip supply.
- Utilities in major data-center states filing rate cases citing AI-driven demand
- Any tracked lab or hyperscaler announcing dedicated power-generation investment tied to this projection
Sources
- press US data centers could consume more natural gas than Germany and Japan combined by 2035 retrieved 2026-09-16